VMTwatch.org looks at the controversial healthcare businesses run by D.C. contractor Solanges Vivens and is part of an effort to stop VMT’s misuse of public funds and improve the care it offers District residents. Read more

D.C. Report Finds VMT Misused Millions

Paid to care for D.C. seniors, VMT gave Vivens $3.5 million

There is explosive new evidence of the ways that VMT and CEO Solanges Vivens have been putting profits over patients.

A report just released by the D.C. Inspector General (IG) finds that even as VMT wrongly withheld benefits from caregivers, it paid millions to CEO Solanges Vivens. The IG uncovered that from 2004 to 2008 VMT paid out $3.5 million to Vivens, its sole shareholder.

The IG identified a total of $2.7 million in District funds lost by VMT and recommended the city move to recoup the money from Vivens’ firm. Read more

A “Unique” Assault on Black History

VMT recently trashed a vital piece of black history when it suddenly changed the name of J.B. Johnson Nursing Center, a D.C.-owned home it manages.

The facility had been named in honor of Dr. J.B. Johnson, a pioneering African-American cardiologist, but as caregivers there mounted an increasingly public campaign for justice earlier this year, VMT wiped away his name and dubbed it “Unique Residential Care Center.” Learn more

Misusing Taxpayer Money

VMT wrongly spent more than $120,000 of D.C. taxpayer funds, according to a 2010 audit by the District’s Office of the Inspector General. The city ordered VMT to return the money last year, but the company has refused and is pursuing an appeal that will drag out till at least 2012. Read more

Shorting Caregivers $1.7 Million

In 2009, the U.S. Department of Labor found that VMT wrongly withheld $1.7 million in health and welfare benefits from nearly 500 workers at the Washington Center for Aging Service, a D.C.-owned nursing home that it managed for the city. VMT has since lost the contract to run the Washington Center. Read more

A public information project of the caregivers of 1199SEIU. Copyright 2011, VMTwatch.org. All rights reserved.